November Anniversaries

 

30 YEARS OF OPERATIONS ON THE S.N.R.!

November 1994 was an important month in the history of the Suffolk Northern.  For one, I broke my leg skiing at Breckenridge, CO, and spent my Thanksgiving weekend getting a titanium rod screwed down the center of my left tibia**.  That hardware is still in place.

** -- What does that have to do with the SNR you ask?  Well not much really -- 

mainly it was the "other" big thing that happened that month.  

Although the downtime from being in the cast did allow me to get the 

Central Valley truss bridge built for the river crossing at Dominion.  👍🙂

But more importantly, just before that happened, the original crew and I held the first shake-down operating session on the SNR -- at least, on the portion of it that was in the previous house.  I was proud to have gotten that far with the layout, a mere two years after buying the place.  What's better is that like the titanium rod, that layout is also still in existence -- it just got moved to the Apple Hill house, and expanded to the current configuration.

So in celebration of 30 years of operations, I thought I'd reprint a page from the website that follows the four stages in the layout's evolution -- affectionately called "HO Railroad That Grows," after the classic old Kalmbach book. That's down at the end of this post, following the announcements. 

It's operating with friends that makes the whole enterprise come to life -- it's the big payoff on all the effort and time.  The modeling and layout-building are just there to form a map on which to play the game -- at least to me.

So come celebrate with me.  And if you've operated over here, thanks for being a part of it.  Take a look below to see how it came to be.

ACQUISITION OF A LONG-SUFFERING SPOUSE

November is also the month of our wedding anniversary, and 2024 marks 35 years.  I'll spare you the mushy details, but I thought you might enjoy the card I created for Barri.

Tanks    for 35 great years

I don't know what you ever saw in me...

And after this card, you may be wondering yourself...

Let it be known that I did not, and would not, set out specifically to acquire two tank cars with our names on them just to create an anniversary card.  That would be pretty tacky.  Even for me. 

BUT -- having already acquired those two models... innocently... independently of one another... I would be remiss in my role as a smartass not to use them, to remove the seriousness from what otherwise is a pretty important event.  I believe it was Barry Goldwater who said "Extremism in the pursuit of comedy is no vice."  Or was it Stan Freberg.  

Anyway -- having a couple of well-developed senses of humor is fundamental to what's kept us together for so long.  Thank God she tolerates the railroad, let alone me.  It's a wonder I push it like this...

THANKSGIVING

Speaking of being thankful, November brings with it Thanksgiving.  And always at the top of the list of things I'm thankful for, just after my family, is the hobby of a lifetime -- and especially, friends to pursue it with.  Just as we led in with, it wouldn't be worthwhile if guys didn't enjoy coming over to run my railroad with me.  Or at least, tell me they do.  It was my primary goal for the whole expedition.  Friends old and new, from 4 years to 45.  Can't beat it.

So a very happy Thanksgiving to you and yours -- and please remember, you're on somebody else's list too.  

H.O. RAILROAD THAT GROWS

"I get attached to things, Reggie!"
-- Nick Nolte, Another 48 Hours

I wouldn't say I never throw anything away.  But I pretty much hate to throw things away.  Especially if they've got remaining value, and/or, invested "sweat equity".  And I definitely hate to do things over.

There is some combination of influences at work that includes:

• The lazy man,
• The thrifty Dutchman,
• The conservationist,
• The waste-abhorring accountant, and
• The aging frugal Dad.

Anyway, the current Suffolk Northern contains elements from (count 'em) three prior layouts.  I didn't exactly begin life in the hobby with the expectation I would re-use almost everything I'd ever built.  However, every time I had the opportunity to build a new layout, the previous one just seemed to fit right in.  The real estate developer will tell you it's cheaper just to bulldoze and start fresh, but for me that wrecks a lot of character and history.  Plus I like the challenge of adapting what's already in existence.

The track plan below shows the evolution of the current SNR.

I built the Timesaver the summer between high school and college, mainly to prove to myself I could handlay track, so that I'd never have to do it again.  I even cut my own ties on a table saw - my friend Darren Williamson is fond of pointing out that such an effort should have yielded approximately 4x as much sawdust as product.  (It did.)  The Timesaver folded up so it could be carried, like a briefcase, and the original hinges are still in place under the buildings in St Amour.  It's bumpy track, but reliable - fairly ideal for an industrial area.

I extended the Timesaver into the shelf layout for the first apartment my wife and I had, which was the first floor of a two-family.  From there it went with us on a two-year assignment to Seattle and back.  It featured staging on a piece of shelving that could be attached to the RH end, allowing cuts of cars to be moved on and off the layout similar to a car ferry.  That shelf is still in use too (although now stationary), above the workbench. The house sits at the corner of Stettinius & Erie avenues, giving name to a key SNR predecessor road.

In the previous house I re-used the shelf layout as the back half of the industrial switching district, St. Amour, which was handy since the building flats were already done for it.  The layout occupied about a 12' x 16' space, plus the staging loops around and behind the bridge module.  The house sits at the corner of Millsbrae & Atlantic avenues, also giving name to a key SNR predecessor road.

When we moved into the current house, some of the track alignments had to be changed at the interfaces with the new parts, but the components are all substantially the same as when originally built in 1993-94.  

Thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!

SNR Centerflows!

This just in -- Patrick Harris, of the Three Notch Rail FB group, who did the special run of SNR 3-bays earlier this year, has just announced a run of Accurail Centerflow 4600sf covered hoppers, factory decorated for the Suffolk Northern.  Patrick's FB page is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/4133403420112674.

If you are interested, we need to act fast -- in 24 hours, almost half the run has been reserved!  Details follow.

The design uses the SNR's 1968 multi-mark, which graces the Evans boxcars many of you modernist guys have running around, with the same Futura font.  If you're curious how the SNR's signature hexagon ended up 7' tall and time-warped into the future, check out Suffolk Northern Ry.: Evolution of the Herald.

The run will include two road numbers, and the build date is 1975.  Price is $28 per car, plus shipping.  The expected production date is late December to early January.  

👉As with the 3-bays, I will cover shipping in a big box for Cincinnati-area guys, COD, but I need to hear back ASAP, best by this Monday Nov. 11. 👈

For non-Cincinnati fans in the "SNR Nation" (really more like the "SNR Bus"!), you can pre-order them directly from Patrick's FB page.  You can also email Patrick at ThreeNotchRail@outlook.com. Again, run don't walk -- inexplicably, they are going like hotcakes.

If you've ever played Monopoly with me, you probably expect I'm making money on this somehow.😄 But no -- it's just quite an honor to see interest in the SNR at this level.

Thanks folks for all the interest and support!

  

Finishing up at Bryan Ferry

They say "the last mile" is the hardest, and my layout is living proof.  There are countless bare spots covering only a couple of square feet each, yet they remain unfinished as the trains and years roll by.

Well I'm trying to knock out those eyesores one by one, and the most recent beneficiary is Bryan Ferry, Va..  The mains, hillsides, depot, creek, etc. were all completed back when, but the industrial area has gone begging -- for long enough!  

After adding ballast, weeds, and debris to the spur track, the first priority was pavement and sidewalks -- for the street that runs between the two main industries in town, Kress Milling Co. and the Aidan Castings Inc. foundry.

A while back the Railway improved the main crossing in town (over at the depot) with automated flashers -- and so in trade, closed the less-used Longdale St. crossing.  The former thoroughfare is now a stub that employees of the adjacent businesses use as a random parking lot.

 

The once-elegant brick pavement was obliterated entirely on the main by the ever-rising high iron, whereas on the industrial track... it was just left to deteriorate.  More bricks were unceremoniously pulled up out of the middle of the lanes to sink posts for the guardrail.

Next door, on the Aidan property, concrete storage bins for raw materials -- in the foundryman's four favorite flavors: sand, pig iron, limestone, and coke -- radiate from a single, pivoting unloader.  Both the bin walls and the heaps are sectioned in front, at the fascia, to fit the oddball space.  We talked about building the bins in a post earlier this year (link: "Bulk Storage for Aidan Castings").

In the current effort, the unloader got some finishing touches, including a transfer pit, a ring path for the conveyor's wheels to ride on, and of course, generous amounts of spillage.  

The foundry's yard is stained with rust from the countless  tons of iron that has been unloaded here to feed the furnace.  Much of it has been supplied by Allegheny Scrap Inc., up the way in St. Amour.  So the stockpile was made using chunks right out of the same supply that gons are loaded with.  

And like Allegheny Scrap's crane, Aidan's is also a BILD-OLL product, improved from a basic Walthers Scenemaster model with paint, weathering, cab glass, and foil for the treads.  And of course, a nameplate. (Click here to see the post about completing Alleghany Scrap.)  

Over at the mill, we can see the new order of business in post-war America has come to even little Bryan Ferry, Va., as a national conglomerate has recently purchased the venerable, locally-owned plant.  (If you'd been wondering why those two panels never got any weathering in the past 20+ years, now you know.  Just took a few decades to get around to having blue decals made.)

Kress Milling's lot was constructed the same way as Aidan Castings' yard and most of the other gravel paving on the layout:  a ballast blend is ground into wet plaster using an HO scale vehicle, creating ruts and chuckholes and exposed mud.  Tread impressions are added too, where tracked machines are in use.  The plaster is then painted with a wash of mud color, and then fresh gravel is applied sparingly to the perimeters, where it might have escaped getting driven into the dirt.  

And after all these years, the coal that Kress Milling receives each day finally has a storage bin, and the sideyard under the viaduct has some texture.

The corrugated iron covers an underground conveyor, which feeds fuel from the storage bin into the mill's boilerhouse.  You can see a depression in the coal heap where the conveyor has carried away half a carload's worth of coal.  

So that's (hopefully) one less eyesore.  Thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think!

A Bridge and a Cut

The Track Dept. has undertaken a couple of projects recently, to shore up the Railway's continuing ability to haul coal at volume.

TRUSS BRIDGE UPGRADE

In late 1994, I had the mainline complete on the original SNR portion that was in the Millsbrae & Atlantic house,  except for one crucial piece -- the gap across the James River at Dominion.  At the time the only real choice for a long single-track bridge was the lacey Central Valley Pratt truss.  It was a craftsman kit, which was more than I really wanted to tackle right then, but -- since this was the final obstacle to operations, I dove headlong into it.  

Now you probably know the term "kit" in this case is an ironic wink/nod to a thick pile of dissociated plastic shapes, and a stick-figure diagram of miter angles.   I was able to get the deck in place fairly quickly, but the truss took me another eight elapsed months to finish.  (Naturally within minutes of its completion, Walthers introduced a beefy truss bridge of similar dimension that takes only an evening or two to assemble.  But I'm not bitter... ) 

Anyway I was pleased with the result, but it had two major drawbacks:

1. It's a spindly iron design from the turn of the century (the last century), more suited to a granger branch than a coal-hauler's heavy mainline.  One system of diagonals is just a pair of pin-connected strap bars... And the opposing diagonals are even weenier, being just a pair of tie-rods.
2. In the kit, the tie-rods are strung using plastic monofilament, which I over-tightened in a me-like fashion** to such an extent that they were actually deforming the truss into a bow.  So I cut them, allowing the truss to relax and spring back to its preferred trapezoid shape, which was much more pleasing to the eye***.  But now there were random disconnected tie-rods rattling around, if you cared to notice.

Friends claim they never noticed the weedy floating tie-rods, but then "they might be jivin' ya too".

My friend Tom Patterson wrote an article for MRH in 2011, in which he demonstrated how he'd shored up the same model for his Chesapeake Wheeling & Erie, also a coal-hauler.  I've always admired all the bridgework on the CWE while operating at his place, and in particular wanted to apply this same procedure to my CV truss.  Tom's version of course is the "gold standard", done to the 9's with heavy CV box-girder diagonals perfectly mitered into place, new custom gusset plates, a bunch of details improved, and beautiful weathering.  

Here's Tom's gorgeous example -- click here for the November 2011 issue of MRH. 

Having already spent 1% of my total lifespan on the original kit, however, I was loath to go to such an extent on an upgrade.  So I opted for the SNR "zinc standard", which is just sufficient effort to move the needle from "Silly" to "Good Enough For Operations".  

To replace the tie-rods, I used the lighter of the two CV girders -- the same ones the kit uses as verticals.  They don't provide quite the added beef as Tom's approach did, but importantly, they could be tucked through the latticework and into the box girders that form the top and bottom chords, without all that exacting surgery.  I re-used the strap bars, and passed them through the centers of these new diagonals.  

Tom went for maximum brawn too by converting the truss to a Warren design, with those big, heavy diagonals forming the zig-zaggy pattern of Charlie Brown's sweater.  I kept the original orientation on mine though, where all the compression members on one half of the bridge are parallel, and the halves oppose one another.****  It fits the lighter-duty diagonals better I think, like on a single-sheathed boxcar. 

🙏 Many thanks to good ol' Bill Doll, too (Forest Park Southern) for allowing me to raid the BILD-OLL Cranes, Inc. stash of Central Valley girders.

I finished it off with a coat of flat black (would you believe I'd never painted the thing), and a light rust wash with acrylics.  The result is way 80/20 -- not a contest winner, but looks substantially more stout than the original -- far less likely to collapse into the James under the weight of a giant Lima Berk.   

IMPROVED CLEARANCE AT WICKED RIVER

Hey speaking of Lima Berks, you may recall that the town of Segway is so named because it's where the Virginia Piedmont segués into the Blue Ridge.  It was intended as a division point, where the high-stepping 69"-drivered Berkshires (or, Kanawhas) are taken off of westbound freights, in favor of mule-legged Mallets which can take their sweet time grinding up the ruling grade.  

As it's played out, though, Segway doesn't really work as a division point.

1. There's just not enough room to make Yaeger Yard big enough for such a function.  And,
2. The engine terminal is tight even by SNR standards.  Shoehorning Mallets and Berks around the streetcar curves and onto the Heljan turntable, with scale inches to spare (usually), is a headache for the yardman, who is quite busy enough just keeping trains moving.

So a while back I thought I'd abandon this division point idea, and just let steam power run straight through, with the addition of a helper engine, of course.  Problem with that scenario was, there's one rock cut on a curve above Segway in which the Berks key up.  

#1812 is irritated to find itself jammed in the cut, just beyond the Wicked River viaduct.

Oddly, the much-longer Mallets, being articulateds, are slippery like worms and fit anywhere.  Whereas the "super-power" 2-8-4s, with their 4-wheel trailing trucks behind long rigid wheelbases, have a huge cab overhang -- devastating to a low-clearance road like the SNR.  

#1809 shows off her prodigious cab overhang at Claymoor.  Even on 28" radius, baby got back.

Just blast out the rock cut you say?  Unfortunately it's only about 1/2" thick, right up against the backdrop.  There just isn't much room for relief -- and the overburden clay sits flush right above it.  Didn't dare touch it, for the longest time.  But after running my own yard recently, I determined it was time to at least try -- and I had an idea.

Plaster dust clinging to the engines demonstrated that the main interference was coming from two wire handrails -- the grip on the back corner of the cab, and another one along the roof over the window.  Now I love my Proto Heritage 2-8-4s, but if Frank Ellison could remove entire valve gear sets from locomotives to improve operations, I certainly was willing to jettison a couple of detail parts you can barely see.  I figured it might also make negotiating those beasts through the service area a bit less dodgy, too.

 

Before & after the handrail removal -- ya kinda don't miss 'em.

So -- with the offending grabs removed from all the Berks, both sides, I ran a test train west out of Segway, and...  crunch.  SOB.  An improvement, but still.  Turns out the handrails were protecting the back corner of the cab roof, which now was the item presenting the evidentiary plaster dust.  So I just.....   naahh, couldn't possibly start trimming body parts.   

Time to tackle the dang rock cut after all.  I use cork tiles on edge for the strata, covered with a thin coat of plaster.  So with some delicate trial-and-error surgery with the needle-nose, thankfully I managed to free up enough clearance for the cab roof corners to pass in both directions, without creating a horizontal gash, or, striking wood.  (There now, was that so hard?)

Touch-up coats of plaster and ink washes pretty well hide the accommodation.  OK, well enough.

Now... here's why this story was worth telling.  Not saying we're never changing steam at Yaeger Yard again -- but we now do have options.  All kinds of options, really -- across the whole schedule.  Prototype steam did have regular assignments, but there were always exceptions.  Some variety will be great for freshening up the ops.

👉  Yard guys -- love to hear your feedback:  what's your level of irritation with the steam power change at Segway?  Can't wait to have done with it?  Or no bigs?

👂  And for everyone, thanks for reading -- and let me know what you think!   

FOOTNOTES

** I have a lifelong fear of being that wormy guy who doesn't tighten bolts adequately.  So I have a tendency to overcompensate -- to keep cinching things down until I either strip the threads, or bend the work.  A car friend once made me a set of diagonal struts for the nose of my 1962 Cadillac that would help quell the convertible "cowl flex", as he'd done with his own '62.  However, when I installed them, I cranked them down so tight I actually deformed the 3-piece front bumper into a crescent.  Brilliant.  

*** What's really interesting about this bridge is that, even with actual steel reinforcement inside the deck stringers, the truss actually does provide useful support, rather than just looking pretty.  With the truss superstructure removed, a locomotive will materially flex and sag the deck, a solid 1/8" or more at mid-span.  Whereas with it clipped in place under the cross-bearers, even with the old tie-rods cut, the entire span stays rigid.  This is not only cool, it is a big help in encouraging trains to stay on the rails.  More than "Life imitates art", I'd say this is something like "Life continues to happen, even in art".

**** OK, nerd time!  By replacing the weakest diagonals -- the tie-rods -- with girders, and keeping the lighter strap bars in the same orientation, technically what I created was a Howe truss.  In a Howe design, the heavier diagonals lean toward the centerline, and are in compression, with the verticals in tension.  Whereas with the Pratt, the opposite is true:  the heavier diagonals fall away from the centerline and are in tension, with the vertical members being the ones in compression..  

This explains the lacey look of the stock CV Pratt truss:  the thing is being held aloft entirely by the tension through pin-connected iron strap bars.  It also explains why one ought not run 400-ton Berkshires across it!  I didn't become a civil engineer because for starters I couldn't stomach the second semester of calculus (also see note on over-tightening, above**), but it still is fascinating as heck.  

If you're down for some additional nerd-gratification, try these:

1. Bridge Types -- a great one-page overview of the various designs, if you've ever wondered, done by the Iowa D.O.T. of all people. 
2. Practical Engineering -- one of my favorite YouTube guys, Grady Hillhouse, distilling civil engineering concepts into short digestible bites for the pedestrian.  With dry humor added.

Minutiae

The SNR is pleased to announce the completion of a couple of infrastructural trifles I've been intending to get to for like, years.  These are nearly meaningless as well as unphotogenic, but come celebrate with me anyway!  ☺

1.  East Segway Interlocking -- Occupancy Detector

If you've ever crewed a helper engine, changed road power, or operated the yard at Segway before, you'll recall how impossible it is to tell when your consist has cleared the interlocking at EY tower.  This is because the eastern extremity of East Segway is located:

• behind the diesel house, 
• around a bend, 
• through the trees, and 
• inside a concrete block wall.

You're never quite sure if you're going to throw a switch under your locomotive, 

without hiking to the other side of the wall for a visual.   

 

 

But no more!  With the addition of one optical detector from Azatrax, the crewman can now tell from the panel when the interlocking is clear and the switch to the main may be thrown.

      

Installing the detectors from underneath the diesel house, through the benchwork, and behind one of the only non-removable hillsides on the property, was a bit like building a ship in a bottle.  Each stem had hot glue liberally applied to it, and then was placed by feel and held until set.  

This was an iterative approach however, as the first attempts ended with my fingers glued together, or, with the sensors glued to my fingers but not to the layout.  Eventually a proper placement was achieved though, successfully illuminating the new panel indicators when the primary switch is fouled -- and successfully clearing when not.  

I was so pleased I added a repeater on the main yard panel while I was at it. 

2.  Della St. Crossing Flashers -- Re-Configured West Detector 

I put out a call a few weeks ago for an Atlas telephone shanty, should anyone happen to have had one in his junk box.  Bill Doll (Forest Park Southern) stepped up with a unit from a prior layout (thanks Bill!).  If you were on that email, you might be wondering what it was about.  Well here's what I did with the shanty and why.

As above, it has to do with optical detection.   I love Azatrax flasher circuitry and detectors, and have installed them at three separate grade crossings.  

Azatrax allows you to configure the infrared LED emitter/collector pairs in either across-the-track mode, or between-the-rails mode.  In the former, breaking the beam trips the detector.  In the latter, connecting the beam -- by having it reflect off a car chassis -- is what trips the detector.

Initially I liked how clean the between-the-rails mode kept the surroundings, and so wired all the visible detectors this way.  It was not long, however, before I began pulling these back out, and re-configuring them for across-the-track mode.  The primary reasoning was twofold:  across-the-track 1) is significantly more reliable and less finnicky, and 2) accommodates multiple parallel tracks with one detector.

I reconfigured every last pair except one -- the west remote detector on the mainline in St. Amour.  This was primarily because I couldn't find a good disguise for the collector, which would just be hanging out there in space between the main and the yard, with no room (or reason) for a building, outbuilding, or pile of shrubbery.  

This meant that for years, Della St. motorists have been unprotected from trains moving eastbound on the secondary track.  And even on the main, sometimes the engines are halfway to the crossing before the detector gets a good reflection off a car chassis and trips.

Well I finally got a fit of inspiration -- the one thing that would both work and fit (and be plausible) would be a skinny telephone shanty like the Atlas.  So I went looking for one -- and here we are.  

In the new across-the-track placement, the collector just keeps an eye out through the window in the shanty, 

and the emitter is hiding in the woods.

A train approaching Della St. now trips the detector even while on the secondary.

In the Company's two-tone green paint, and at an SNR level of compression, 

the telephone shack might even pass for a yard office.  

3. Rodentia

As if destroying my smoke at the Basin refinery wasn't bad enough, the mice have now, for no apparent reason, chewed through my delicately-strung barbed wire.

"Enough is ENOUGH!

I have HAD it

with these MOTHERf____in' MICE

on this MOTHERf____in' LAYOUT!"

-- Samuel L. Jackson, Snakes on a Plane

Bet you didn't know Sam was a model railroader.  😉   (To see the actual clip, click here. [PARENTAL WARNING].)

The irony is, it's the snakes that are missing from the equation in this case.  The black rat snakes which ordinarily patrol the woods around the house so diligently seem to be on sabbatical, so the varmints are free to set up shop in the basement.

The little vermin can't resist raiding the scrap wood piles at Slim's Cooperage -- 

which used to look a lot more like lumber cutoffs and less like mulch.  But no real loss there -- 

and it makes Three Rocks the ideal location for countermeasures, which have been effective.

Just wish they hadn't sampled the barbed wire across the tracks.  That was all strung in continuous threads and super-glued, so repair is going to be a project!  Why.  Alas.

👉 Well thanks as always for reading, and let me know what you think!

   

Misty

 

"Look at me...♫   I'm as helpless as a kitten in a tree...♫"

-- Erroll Garner Trio, "Misty", 1954

If you've operated at my place recently, you've probably already seen the complete-ish scenery at Misty, W. Va.. (Or if you prefer Led Zeppelin to Erroll Garner, "Misty Mountain".)  

In a me-like fashion, it's been 90% done for months -- have just been waiting on some last-minute details before posting about it.

One of the things that took so long was that I have been recording the process to use as a "How It's Made" page on the permanent blog.  I've been wanting to document (because someone might be interested!) the scenery contour methods on the Suffolk Northern.   They are a bit unorthodox, not unlike most of the rest of the layout, nor the owner himself.  But hey, re-inventing the wheel and tuning it for my own needs and preferences are actually part of the fun.  

I'd appreciate it if you'd take a look at that page and tell me what you think:  Suffolk Northern Ry.: Landforms.  All feedback is welcome -- on the methods, the effect, the page itself, the author's musical taste, whatever you like.    

"On my own...♫  Would I wander through this wonderland alone...♫"

Misty is the helper cutoff point at the summit of the westward ruling grade, and the location of the Cornelis-Imperial Co.'s #3 tipple.  Finishing the scenery here was a boost to railfanning, so the trains emerging from the summit tunnel, instead of just drifting through masonite and homasote, finally have some mountains to conquer.  Or as the Tweeners say, "mouw-ihs".     

"So I'm packing my bags for the Misty mountains, where the spirits go..."

-- Led Zeppelin, "Misty Mountain Hop", 1971

Thanks as always for reading, and please if you have a minute, take a spin through the page at Suffolk Northern Ry.: Landforms and let me know what you think.